


shades of blue

by nyoengland



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M, also i wanted to give something to tey bc i love her and my postal service is terrible, not really ready to come back to consistent updates, so i wrote this shit instead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 09:33:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16037738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyoengland/pseuds/nyoengland
Summary: "And in that car, Alfred's warm voice, the stars above them and in his eyes, Arthur felt as if he would allow himself to love for the first time. Because even if it ended in heartbreak, he would not regret giving his heart to someone so beautiful."a gift & experimental work.





	shades of blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MyCatHatIsOn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyCatHatIsOn/gifts).



> so uh hi
> 
> for the 3 of you who still care about my multichapters, i'm really sorry. i started the IB this year, and honestly the best thing about it is the fact i get to play two hours of badminton on a thursday afternoon. i'll do my best to get back on track, but there is nothing guaranteed.
> 
> but more importantly - happy birthday, tey! while the mail's still getting processed, i want you to have this. i'm sorry that it's far from my best work. i've been listening to lana del rey a lot recently, and a handful of my favourite tracks inspired this piece. but i was thinking of you while i wrote it, and i'm sorry that one of your gifts has to be an angst drabble, lol. //still waiting on SS wheeze i love you heaps, and i'm looking forward to another year and more of being your friend. <3

Feathers cling to his hair.

It makes Alfred look like some newborn chick, wide baby blues and slightly ajar mouth, bare feet on the overturned crate and guitar in his arms, nestled up on one knee. His fingers, calloused from years worth of pressing on strings, twist at knobs that he knows almost too intimately. God, Arthur can’t stop looking at him. He’s never been unable to stop looking at him.

Arthur’s cheeks fight back a blast of cold heat when Alfred’s eyes catch the dingy light hanging above him in his slightly ajar garage door. Everything’s packed up, ready to go - except Alfred himself. Behind those square frames is a careful anger that disguises grief by the way his head dithers and his fringe dangles in front of his forehead. His fingers lie dormant, wrist frisking invisible notes for the few seconds Arthur can stand to wait any longer, lost in his world that is unbreakable.

Knowing this, Arthur still knocks on the door, short raps echoing off the crude metal that makes Alfred’s head jerk towards the sound. There’s palpable dread in that gaze, yet he stumbles off the crates, abandoning his guitar and enveloping Arthur in a warmth that sears his skin yet soothes it. He feels as if his feet are rooted to the ground as he mingles his heartbeat with Alfred’s own, the sound suffocating.

“So, you’re going?” Arthur manages after a moment, not wanting to meet his eyes. His fingertips linger in Alfred’s left hand as he turns away, but notices his blue Mustang perched precariously in the corner. He lets his mind think of their nights speeding through the apartment complex on the south side of the city, legs tangled together so tightly that he was not sure of where he ended and Alfred began, countless words fading in and out of each other, the two of them against the world.

“Tonight, yeah. Mom’s organising a going away party. Domino’s and Coke and everything. It’s gonna be pretty cool.” Alfred’s mouth twitches after the last word, as if he wants to say something - but nothing comes. As stupid as it sounds, Arthur feels as if he’s suffocating in the grief lingering in his chest, drowning in nothing. He watches his own reflection in Alfred’s eyes, blurred by tears and unspoken feelings. “Yeah. It’s…it’s gonna be great. E-everyone’s gonna come, and…”

“I’m…glad, Alfred,” Arthur gets out, fingers trembling as they detract from Alfred’s skin. God, this was a mistake. “I-I hope you have a good time tonight. What about Sakura? Did you…did you invite her as well? You know she’d want to come to anything you host, before…before you go…”

Arthur winces as his voice cracks on the last word, heat lingering on their small points of contact - elbows, knuckles, fingertips, palms. He wishes he didn’t care as much as he does. Arthur manages to let himself look into Alfred’s eyes for the last time, the shades of blue clouding his vision before he tries to wrest himself from Alfred’s embrace, frantic and wild like a trapped animal.

“Arthur,” Alfred whispers, and Arthur could shatter there and then, Alfred’s hands wrapped over his shoulders and hot, wet tears on his right shoulder, breath ragged. “Don’t go so soon, please. Fuck. God, I needed to see you. But you know why I couldn’t.”

_The way you can’t leave breaks me. Don’t let me stop you. I’m caught in your eyes, as always._

“Alfred, you can’t. You have to…you’re just here for the summer. You told me you have a job, and a-”

_I’m caught in you._

“It doesn’t have to be like that,” Alfred insists, and fat tears roll down his flushed cheeks, ones that he doesn’t even try to brush away. “Please. We’ll write, we’ll text, we’ll meet up, we’ll-”

The peeling beige of the garage door swims before his eyes as Alfred breaks off into a sob, and he can feel Alfred’s strong arms tremble around his shoulders. Arthur’s always hated the fucking garage.

Arthur had met him in this garage, on a soupy June evening.

Alfred had kissed him here for the first time, mouth and laugh bold, in the garage.

Arthur had known that he’d have to watch Alfred leave from the garage, driving away in the patchy seat where he used to curl up in, noses and faint freckles brushing as they shared breaths in borrowed time.

“You know you have to move on,” Arthur whispers, lips pressing themselves into a line so hard that they go white. “You can’t be stuck in this sleepy town. God, no. Not someone like you. You can’t be with someone like me.”

“The guy who crawled out of his window to come see me in the dead of night? The guy who spent hours listening to my bullshit, and didn’t make fun of me afterwards? The guy who told me, above everyone else, how scared he was of being rejected? I love him. And I know that person’s you, Arthur,” Alfred mumbles, and for an agonising moment Arthur twists over to face him, face in hands to not betray the vulnerability Alfred always elicits from him. “I _won’t_ give up on you. I won’t give up on us. We’ll make these three months count, I swear. I’ll come back for you one day.”

A selfish bolt of panic sets into Arthur’s spine. He’s really going.

The idea repeats in his mind as he cries into Alfred’s white polo, breathing haggard and helpless as he holds him, murmuring soft words into his hair that Arthur can’t pick up over the sound of Alfred’s quickened heartbeat and the halfhearted pounding of his palms on his chest. 

* * *

He doesn’t go to the party, as he promised. Alfred wouldn’t have left and Arthur would have stood in the kitchen the entire night, Sprite in one hand and a tissue in the other. So the last thing he ever sees of Jones is a small, tightly wrapped box, and a shattered car, a little _Greetings from Texas_ charm snapped in two.

If anything could break him, it would be this parcel. It would look like some sort of care package to a bystander, but to Arthur it holds the world within.

Or, it would be that one phone call, on the same sort of soupy night in August, where they first met.

A grey shirt, the NASA logo emblazoned on it, a little dogged but it smells of _him._

Two reflective disks, one which Arthur watches through tears and one that he can’t watch at all.

A tiny cassette, one that nestles perfectly in the player that they used to share, filled to the brim with Alfred’s laughter and songs from his cover band, from the Beatles to Fleetwood Mac. _a rose by any other name_ is written in black Sharpie.

Three lined pages of paper, ripped from the spine of a notebook. It starts _Hey, lovely,_ and Arthur puts it away before he can weep over the ink.

Closing his eyes, Arthur shuts the box again, gives his phone a single wistful swipe, then leaves it for the night. It’s a freezing evening during early February, but still. He can’t help but unlock the thing one last time.

He was last seen, August 8th. How many times Arthur weeps, calls, texts, or begs, it’ll never change from there. However many times Arthur tries to forget the mountain of _Gone too soon, I miss you man, I loved you,_ on Alfred’s Instagram, Facebook, what have you, it won’t change. He can't erase that newscast from his mind, the picture of Alfred's emaciated face, those eyes that he loves blown in an expression that seems so alien from the boy in his heart.

128 unread messages, lingering on delivered.

_God, you were so wrong._


End file.
